Today and tomorrow Tamar is not going to school. We are going to be spending some time just hanging out and being together. We are packing right now to go to a hotel on Saba, called Queen’s Garden. I am excited because it is supposed to be a really nice place. It is where Tamar had her Midway formal this past semester (a school-wide party).

I am also in the process of uploading some videos. All of the videos are going to be in their own album (”Saba Trip 2008 - Videos”). They are video representations of what we thought could not be caught through still images. It will be done in 6 minutes. (shhh… 35mb in 30+ min/25 KBps upload is not great… but thats Caribbean internets).
(Videos: http://picasaweb.google.com/akv292/SabaTrip2008Videos#)

I am not sure if we will have internet there or not (we should) and honestly, even if we do… I don’t know if I am going to want to post anything. Peace.

Anyways, today I will be alone. Tamar has class from 8am to 5:30pm. This means, with a day to myself, I will have the opportunity to explore the lengths of this unspoiled island. I am going to make myself a little breakfast and then I am going to head out. Tamar owns a small moped that will hopefully get me around. They have ridiculously steep hills here in Saba… and little mopeds trying to get big guys like me up really steep hills, ends every sentence with a question mark. We will see how it goes, but I am excited to explore this island and see everything that it has to offer.

The roads are crazy here, not just steep, but squirrely as a corkscrew and often overlooking deep ravines and cliffs. People drive quickly… so I have to muster my courage, be an ass on the road and drive really slowly… as far from traffic and other dangers as possible. I will be sure to take tons of pictures and post them here as soon as I can. Wish me luck!

Anyways, check out what I have done so far here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akv292

1) Being in St. Maarten for a night and leaving in the morning on the ferry.
2) Hiking up Mt. Scenery

This happened in June. I just found it now. Why would you mention a fist pump being compared to a terrorist’s gesture? This thought is a newsworthy piece of information to share with your viewers? The New York Times had the same information, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, all had the same information, for some reason, they didn’t feel it worthwhile to mention how some people think Obama is a terrorist because he pounds. “Terrorist Fist Jab”. They actually said it. Unbelievable. That’s what Mark Mcguire (not to mention everyone in my generation) has been doing for the last 10 years. We must all be terrorists?! “Terrorist Fist Jab.” Besides them not regarding my generation as their demographic AT ALL, I think it seems very clear that Fox News has only one real purpose. The scary thing is that some people actually believe that garbage.

I love the response that the reporters in the video I attached have. The best way to combat this ridiculousness is to mock them. To call them out and make them know how ridiculous it really is. But if I hear anything about how the media is trying to slander Palin… I swear…

A co-worker of mine shared this youtube video with me the other day. I am a relieved to see it.

After watching all of the RNC stuff going on lately, it was comforting to watch this YouTube video and be reminded that open-mindedness, care, and a drive to understand others aren’t bad things. We are a country of many different types of people. I haven’t figured out how someone can support a campaign that is unwilling to waver on a position that opposes certain caring and understanding ideas. To openly condemn community organizers was a mistake on Sarah Palin’s part, and I would hope she would agree, but I think what it does say is something about the core of the party. They do not seem to concern themselves with inflammatory comments, comments that can easily offend people that are different from them (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/). Rudy Giuliani ripped on the Democratic National Convention for never saying the term “Islamic Terrorism”. He openly ripped on them for being afraid of being politically incorrect. Really? Is it ridiculous to think that a large political party is going to try to be respectful to it’s country’s citizens? What does this say about Rudy Giuliani and the Republican Party? (See a response to it from the Muslim community). Sarah Palin stated that the Democrats would be worried about reading people that we arrest for terrorism their rights. This was meant to be a jab at the Democratic party. Are you kidding me? It is part of the United States judicial code that even the worst criminals get their rights read to them. Why would we openly argue that skipping civility is a preferred way to handle any type of judicial situation.

I am just tired of it. I’m tired of listening and trying to comprehend what these people are saying. I hate to admit it, but with these last three days, I will now openly say that I 100% agree with at least one thing the Obama campaign is running. The republican party is still the republican party. It is still the same republican party that has been running the country for most of the last 8 years. Change is something that seems refreshing to me. I like the sound of it, and am hopeful for something different than the last 4 days to run our country.

Here is a video about Hope and Change that excites me. “I don’t want a nation just for me, I want a nation for everybody”.

The website that I am building allows for users to signup/create usernames/login/post entries/etc. The goal was to require a user, when signing up, to add what company they worked for. This is not one of the standard fields that come with Movable Type’s sign up form (we purchased the Community Solution). What is baked in to Movable Type is the ability to create custom fields on the user object. This is good. It means that we can add as many fields as we want, and associate the data to a specific user, (i.e. Company, Job Title, Birthday, etc.). MT has some documentation on allowing a user to update this custom information on their profile page (http://www.movabletype.org/documentation/community/user-profiles.html). Here is the code they suggest:

<mt:loop name="field_loop">
<mt:if name="__first__">
<input type="hidden" name="customfield_beacon" value="1" id="customfield_beacon" />
</mt:if>

<mtapp:setting
id="$field_id"
label="$name"
hint="$description"
shown="$show_field"
show_hint="$show_hint"
required="$required">
<mt:var name="field_html">
</mtapp:setting>

</mt:loop><br />

This is great if you want a user to be able to enter all of the created custom field data at once because it just loops through all of your custom fields and creates input fields for each of them. We had about 10 custom fields on the user object and only wanted the person signing up to enter the ‘Company’ information on signup (as to not make them feel overwhelmed with so much information to input).

How I accomplished only writing one field is to throw an MT if statement in there based on what the $field_id is. In other words what your custom field’s basename is preceded by “customfield_”.

<mt:if name="field_id" eq="customfield_company">
</mt:if>

With “company” my field’s basename, that made the field_id I was looking for, customfield_company.

My final code to display only the company custom field on the user signup form (with MT4.2):

<mt:loop name="field_loop">
<mt:if name="__first__">
<input type="hidden" name="customfield_beacon" value="1" id="customfield_beacon" />
</mt:if>

<mt:if name="field_id" eq="customfield_company">
<mtapp:setting
id="$field_id"
label="$name"
hint="$description"
shown="$show_field"
show_hint="$show_hint"
required="$required">
<mt:var name="field_html">
</mtapp:setting>
</mt:if>

</mt:loop><br />

Note: This is only possible on the user registration page after the release of MovableType 4.2. Before that, I think this could only be done on the profile page.

I will update this if I learn any discrepancies in what I said. If you find any, please let me know.

I have always been looking for a Wordpress gallery plugin that I can easily throw together and manage some images, galleries and albums on this blog. Well I found the perfect tool. It is called NEXTGen, and for anyone who is as geeky as me, it is sweet and lives here.

I uploaded some pictures from the Winter Wonderland trip that I took this past winter. We took a weekend and went up past Northport, to the tip of the pinky of Michigan. We stayed in a wonderful cabin called “Whispering Pines”. It was a small cabin that had 3 rooms (one of them a loft) a really cozy living room with a wood burning fireplace, and a hot tub on the back porch. It was located in the middle of a pine forest right outside of Leelanau State Park.

I should have uploaded these a while ago but I didn’t. I will upload some more pictures of other events soon. You can get there by clicking on the ‘Gallery’ link under ‘Pages’ in the navigation to the right. I will give a link in this post as well for anyone who gets these in their emails or RSS feeds.

Aaron’s New Gallery

Now I generally don’t subscribe to guerilla/viral marketing (which this definitely could be), but this guy openly confesses that this started out as a fluke. He had always danced like a goof-ball (since 2-3 years old) and still dances that way. One day his traveling buddy said, ‘Dude, do that annoying dance you always do and I will film you’. Eventually people found that video and it became popular. Then people from Stride gum contacted him and asked him if he wanted to make another video that they would sponsor. He of course said yes. They kept their hands out of it, not requiring anything except that he create it. (Get the whole story at http://wherethehellismatt.com/).

The coolest part about this whole thing, is that after the first video he had massive popularity so he could contact tons of people, tell them when he would be in their city and ask them to join him. So he contacted Stride again and asked if they would sponsor one more trip, a trip that would include local people dancing with him.

I watched part of one of his talks and he talked about bubbles, and how people are so comfortable in their little bubbles (apartment bubble, car bubble, workplace bubble, shopping mall bubble, etc.) He is using this opportunity as a way to try to get more United States Citizens to do more traveling and step outside of their comfort zones. I will say that it definitely worked on me. I want to travel now and feel lame for not ever really taking that option seriously.

So here it is… I hope either you have seen it, loved it then and don’t mind watching it again, or love it when you watch it for the first time now.

Here is the first video

Here is the second video (the one with many people displaying their own culture).

So for any who have not heard this band before, I just introduced you to your new favorite band. For everyone else, aren’t they fabulous!? The Midnight Organ Fight is my most prized album right now, a definite contender for my number one Album of 2008.

The band’s lyrics are highly notable. They push emotive longing, emptiness and fear to new levels. Scott Hutchison pours out his soul in raw lyrical feuds, accenting their strengths: pounding beats, soaring vocals and powerful guitar riffs. No one could expect one with his voice to play so perfectly with the lyrical depth and musical magnitude expressed on each track (his scottish accent helps). I can’t rave enough about how amazing my journey through this album has been these past few weeks.

Also, I am excited to announce that I will be in Chicago this Thursday to see them live. They are playing with the French-Kicks who I really dislike ever since their horrible performance at Calvin with the Decemberists. But do not fret, Frightened Rabbit will be worth all of the bustle. If you are interested we are leaving at 5:00pm and will be home later than 2:00pm. Everyone is welcome. I know I know, this will make work the next day tough, but it will be well worth it, trust me.

I am in love with every track on this album so choosing these are hard, but to prove that I’m not just crazy, here are two great songs that I think most encompasses their sound. So give them your deserved attention (and buy their CD from emusic or insound) because they deserve it. You can also listen to more Frightened Rabbit at their Myspace.

It has been disconcertingly long since I have been so inspired, excited, courageously charged by good music… and it feels good to have it once again!

The subject of this ecstatic feeling… Cloud Cult. Many of you know that I have been a huge fan of Cloud Cult in the past, their eclectic pop sound (yeah I said it), mesmerizing syncopation, and inquisitive lyrics make me cry and dance at the same time. I was a huge fan of their 2005 release Advice From The Happy Hippopotamus, and I liked what they did in 2007 with The Meaning of 8, but it seems that while touring, painting, and saving the world (they are extreme advocates of environmentalism) they have the ability to write extremely enticing music. Feel Good Ghosts is a distinctive release for Cloud Cult, setting them well beyond the scope of most artists. I am reminded why I liked them in the first place but this time for progressing reasons.

Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) is accessible pop music that has been ripped up by Cloud Cult and then masterfully placed back together piece by piece… how they want it to be. This is not news if you are familiar with Cloud Cult, but this album takes different shape than the others. It seems happier, a bit less wrenched over, yet still very inquisitive and prodding. They also use much more orchestral pieces than the previous albums which makes their sound extremely full, and makes me miss Nate Stehouwer a lot.

I will post a song here, hopefully they wont mind. You can listen to more Cloud Cult over here. Every song on the album is amazing, choosing which one to post was difficult (so when you get the album, make sure you listen to the last track). With that… I URGE you, buy their album. Get it at their website, $12 shipped to your door or $10 mp3 download (no iTunes music locks). eMusic also has it, if you are subscribed.

I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.